Joaquin and Julian Castro's national road show

In Washington, much of the Democratic Party is experiencing a “Back to the Future” moment, with a pair of white politicians pushing 70 — Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden — dominating the early politics of 2016.

Out in the states, it’s another story. There, the rank and file of the Democratic coalition has spent 2013 getting to know a different, fresher pair of faces for the party: Joaquin and Julian Castro.

Text Size

-

+

reset

Julian Castro’s DNC highlights

The two brothers, who burst upon the national stage in 2012 after Julian — the mayor of San Antonio — keynoted the Democratic National Convention, have burned up the Democratic Party’s national speaking circuit this year. By the end of October, the 38-year-old twins will have appeared at major functions in at least 11 states outside their native Texas, and also the sets of prominent national TV programs like NBC’s “Meet the Press” and ABC’s “This Week.”

In the process, they have filled a void within their party, which despite fashioning itself as the home for a younger and more diverse America, has elevated few politicians during the Age of Obama who actually look like that emerging electorate.

The Castro brothers’ speeches are marquee engagements, often the most desirable invitations that any given state party has to hand out. Joaquin Castro, the first-term congressman, has already addressed the Indiana Democrats’ Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, the New Jersey Democrats’ state convention and South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn’s annual fish fry. He’s scheduled this fall to visit the New Mexico and Maryland state parties and headline a Democratic dinner in California’s upscale Orange County.

Julian, meanwhile, has spoken to Jefferson-Jackson dinners in the nation’s top two swing states, Ohio and Florida, as well as Arizona, the traditional bastion of Sun Belt conservatism where Democrats are increasingly determined to compete. In September, he’ll travel to Iowa to appear at Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin’s steak fry, a big-ticket event in the leadoff presidential caucus state; Joaquin Castro told POLITICO he’ll join his brother there but doesn’t plan to speak.

The two have also committed to campaigning in Virginia this fall for gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, Democratic sources said. The schedule hasn’t been set, but the Castros are planning to do get-out-the-vote events for McAuliffe in the hotly contested race, in which the Democrat’s prospects for victory hinge in no small part on minority turnout.

For a pair of junior Democrats who were relatively unknown at this time last year, it is an astonishingly ambitious itinerary — and a vivid illustration of how quickly a politician can advance in the present day when his biography and message line up with the political moment.

In separate interviews, Joaquin and Julian Castro both embraced the role into which they’ve been cast, not necessarily as ideological leaders or candidates for high office themselves, but as avatars of what Democrats hope their party and country are becoming.

“The city I come from and the state I come from really represent the face of America in the coming decade,” said Joaquin Castro, who invokes his family’s story and the need for “an infrastructure of opportunity” in America as he tours the country.

Julian Castro put it even more plainly, suggesting that voters “see the future, oftentimes, in folks who are new to them and relatively young.”

“What I hope they see is that I’ve lived a story that is like a lot of their families have, and that embodies the American dream,” the mayor said. “I hope they expect to hear how we can continue to be a country that delivers American dream stories, like I’ve lived and Joaquin has lived.”

In some respects, the Castros’ rapid arrival on the political scene is a testament to their individual talents, and their family’s immigrant story of upward mobility through hard work and elite education. They are both gifted orators, and well-prepared from their background in conservative Texas to make the case for Democratic values in every time zone.

But as the brothers freely acknowledge, their position in the Democratic Party also reflects powerful underlying changes in the nature of American politics — changes that the Castros reflect almost perfectly:

At a moment when both parties are fixated on the country’s generational and demographic changes, they are the nation’s most prominent Hispanic politicians under 40. As Democrats dream of turning Texas into a swing state, they are two of the only Texas Democrats well-enough known to run statewide. Both Castros — and Julian, the San Antonio mayor, especially — can relate to a country and a Democratic Party that have grown increasingly urban. (“As a big-city mayor, there’s something I offer that a lot of folks can’t,” Julian Castro said.)

Perhaps most importantly, after President Barack Obama’s ascent to the White House, an ambitious official no longer needs to spend decades paying his dues in order to be treated as a serious voice on politics and policy.